


The Bentley and the Bicycle

by Cassandraic



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crush at First Sight, First Crush, Other, Self-Insert, Vehicles, is it self-insert fic if it's really about my bicycle?, okay fine maybe it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22405993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassandraic/pseuds/Cassandraic
Summary: On a tour of America, the Bentley meetsHer. No, notthatHer.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), The Bentley (Good Omens)/Other(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 25





	The Bentley and the Bicycle

**Author's Note:**

> My first time committing fic ever, in any fandom. Please be kind. No beta; plenty of people will tell you I'm headed for hell anyway.
> 
> I use the canonical pronoun for the Bentley, though I don't quite like to.
> 
> This happened because how can there not be plentiful Bentley/bicycle fic?

The Bentley had been glad to pull into the hotel garage last night. The evening’s train of thunderstorms had been wicked even for America in summer, where storms built to a livid hail-filled ferocity even the blazing M25 might have respected. This morning after, though, felt delightfully clean and contented against a sky precisely the correct shade of blue, rather reminiscent of the car’s angel rider after a better-than-usual meal. Mornings like this set off the Bentley’s own lavish good looks to perfection; its demon rider often said so, running a lean proprietary hand over fender or headlamp or bonnet, and who was the Bentley to demur?

The Bentley could not drive on the Capitol Square just then, as it was closed off by some sort of summer festival—every American downtown boasted these; the Bentley found them a decided nuisance—so it drove its riders around blocks at random, slowly, as they debated where to pick up breakfast, or at least (the car’s demon rider insisted) a half-decent coffee, not hotel swill.

Then the Bentley caught sight of _Her_. 

_Her_ , the one and only _Her_ , uniquely and ineluctably _Herself_ among the millions of lookalike painted-alike built-alike ridden-alike vehicles the Bentley had left in its dust in its meandering trek across America. _Her_ —and the Bentley had some inkling that the capital letter was blasphemy, but it simply could not care.

A power-chorded yell of “BICYCLE! _BICYCLE! **BICYCLE!**_ ” burst from the Bentley’s speakers, much to its passengers’ startlement, as it executed a glaringly illegal mid-block U-turn across three lanes and pulled to a perfect stop—screeching tyres would be vulgar beyond belief—next to a graceful step-through bicycle coloured something like lilac, something like lavender, but not exactly like either. She— _She_ , who wore her aura of rider-love like the Bentley’s angel his bowties— _She_ stood tall and graceful on her two-pronged kickstand, front wheel and butterfly handlebars turned companionably toward the street and the Bentley newly parked thereon.

“What the heaven was that about?” the demon expostulated, pushing his bony bruised corporation off the interior as the Bentley’s engine sighed to an enraptured silence.

The angel only tilted his head, curious and rather fond. His heavenly nature could not help but recognize a sudden crush; he just had no previous reason to think the Bentley susceptible. “I think your car has found us breakfast, dear boy,” he said soothingly, nodding toward the tree-shaded coffeeshop behind the Bentley’s unexpected inamorata. “Or at least coffee. Shall we?”

The Bentley’s driver-side and front-passenger doors opened simultaneously by way of hint. Grumbling, the demon long-limbed himself out, rounding the front of the car to stop beside his angel, who rather than beelining for breakfast stood contemplating the bicycle carefully locked to the rack on the sidewalk. “Coming, angel?”

“Yes, of course, just—“ The angel lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I do believe your car is rather—smitten.”

“Smitten? Smitten! Who’d dare smite _my car_?” The demon threw out his chest, glaring mordantly at the pleasant morning city about them.

“No, no, dear boy, no one would, I’m sure.” The angel gave a meaningful little wiggle. “Not what I meant at all.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ” The demon joined the angel’s bemused perusal of the bicycle. “Least it’s a well-made one,” he grumbled. “Not one of those mass-produced aluminium horrors, fall apart at the drop of a hat, unfixable, wish I’d come up with ‘em but no, Ligur got in ahead of me there, one penny-pinch executive and watch build quality go all to hell… not bad, this, really not bad, nice lines, top-flight lugged steel, belt drive, all the braze-ons, even a proper head-badge…”[1]

“Of course your car would have good taste in bicycles, Crowley; it belongs to _you_ , after all,” said the angel, taking the demon’s arm. “Come now, coffee for you and pastries for me and let’s leave them to it, hm?” 

The demon let himself be persuaded. “Wonder where its—“

———

“—rider’s got to? In where your riders are going,” said _She_ , with the velocipedal equivalent of a friendly smile. “Good to meet you. What’s your name?”

The Bentley hesitated. In its experience, names were human things bestowed by humans. Since neither of its riders was human, that was that. “The,” it blurted, when a blurt felt less embarrassing than the lengthening silence. “I think. My rider calls me The Bentley.”

 _She_ was far too gracious to smirk. “Very distinguished,” She said. “I like it. My name is Jaca—“

———

“—randa?” Crowley repeated, looking down his long nose at the unlovely middle-aged fat woman who at his genial (well, genial for him) raised-voice inquiry in the coffeeshop had asserted ownership of the Bentley’s crush-object. “That’s an odd one.”

“Flowering tree from the South,” she answered easily. “I like purple, obviously—“ she brushed one hand through her chin-length dyed-violet forelock—“and I’ve always liked the sound of the word, so when I had my bike made I chose her color to match. Here, I’ll show you.” A few taps on her phone, and she held it out to them displaying a photo of a tree blooming gloriously in not-quite-lilac, not-quite-lavender, a tree that even Crowley, who held strong opinions about flora, could find no fault with.

“Jacaranda,” Aziraphale said, tasting the word as though it were a profiterole. “How lovely. It sounds fast and stylish and just the tiniest bit tricky.”

“That’s my bicycle, all right.” Unlike Madame Tracy, this woman felt only wariness toward Crowley’s lean and hungry good looks, but their complementary wedding rings and the vaguely antique gentility coming off Aziraphale in waves gave her sufficient ease to ask, “Would you like to sit down?” She gestured at the empty chairs beside and across from her at the tiny table. “Farmer’s market, everything near the Square’s—”

———

“—jam-packed, so it’s far easier for folks like me to get around up here. Must be frustrating for you, though.”

“Only until I saw you, Jacaranda,” said the Bentley, trying for its rider’s intense suavity and landing instead at intense awkwardness.

Jacaranda’s handlebar-bell gave a bright laugh, lightening the humid early-August air. “Well, aren’t you just the customest!” she rang. “Call me Jaqui; my rider does.”

“My rider’s had me from new,” the Bentley boasted, trying to reach surer ground. A ray of sun gleamed just so off its hood ornament.

This did not seem likely, or indeed even possible, to Jacaranda, but why quarrel with a chance-met _objet d’ingénierie_? “You too? Mine had me designed and built specially for her. We went through a few changes at first—pedals, saddle, you know how it goes—but now I’m everything she wants.”

“Oh, well, yes, I’ve had a few upgrades over the years, come to that. Like my stereo.” The Bentley unfocused its headlamps to re-read the love suffusing Jacaranda’s aura, enthralled by the self-assured beauty of a vehicle so clearly and unreservedly precious to her rider. “So, what are you—“

———

“—doing this side of the pond, Mr. Fell?”

“Just touring the States, my dear,” answered Aziraphale, “and do please call me Ezra.”

Crowley returned with black coffee for himself and tea and sweets for the angel in time to hear her say her name. “Anthony,” he said in his turn as he seated himself. Americans’ lack of formality had ruffled his feathers at first, but Aziraphale’s wholehearted delight in the overfamiliarity had resigned him to it.

“Ezra, Anthony,” she repeated, nodding her head politely once to each of them. “Anything in particular bring you to Madison?”

“Heading for Chicago,” Crowley said, tilting his chair onto its rear legs, one arm tossed carelessly over its back, “but the weather yesterday got a bit much.”

“Oof, yeah, can’t blame you there,” she answered with a cordial grimace. “Glad I made it home from work before that started. I hope the delay isn’t a problem?”

“No, no, not at all, we’re just meandering through at our own pace,” Aziraphale reassured her. “This seems a rather—“

———

“—nice place, if _you_ live here,” said the Bentley, rising a notch or two further on the suavity scale. “Where do you like to go?”

“Oh, I like the trail to the town with all the trolls,” she said.[2]

“Trolls?” the Bentley repeated in alarm, rapidly riffling through its repertory of Queen lyrics to work out how to warn its riders. The Bentley had met bison in the Rockies and decided it did _not_ approve of America's monster contingent. _Come to the ogre battle fight_ might do.

“Troll _sculptures_ ,” chuckled Jacaranda. “There’s even a carved dragon on the bicycle center by the trail in town there. Long trip, ‘specially now my rider’s a bit older, but the way home is mostly downhill, so we manage. You wouldn’t have any trouble with that last mile’s hill, of course—but oh, it’s a bike trail, you’d have to go a different way, I’m so sorry!”

The Bentley’s chagrin at having distressed her even the slightest bit positively vibrated its windscreen. “No, no, you can like what you like, and I did ask! I’d just—go a different way. We could meet there, couldn’t we? At your bicycle center by the trail?”

“Sure,” said Jacaranda, her bell softly chiming again. “There’s a parking lot you can use. Do you and your riders like the outdoors? There’s closer places, like—”

———

“—the Arboretum. It’s a little less formal-gardeny than Olbrich, but the birdwatching’s better and there’s the lake, if you like that kind of thing. What kind of thing _do_ you like?”

Crowley and Aziraphale glanced at each other. “Ducks,” said Crowley sepulchrally.

“Anthony, if you please, dear. Good local food.”

“Sunny places.”

“Especially picnics in sunny places.”

“A decent wine,” said Crowley, eyeing the interior wall of the coffeeshop, which was liberally pockmarked with labelled cavities containing wine bottles.[3] Most of the bottles therein were nothing to write home about to a demon of Crowley's absurdly refined tastes, but he thought that Tokay to the left of the second row should be drinkable.

“Live music, as long as it isn’t be-bop.”

Crowley narrowed his dark-lensed gaze at the woman, ready to snap if she impugned his angel’s dignity—that was his job!—but she met the anachronism with barely a quirk of the lips. “Jazz’s all right,” the demon answered her brief questioning glance at him with an approving lack of hiss, “and so’s a good bit of Mozart or Liszt.”

“Or Haydn, dear, or any of the Bachs, really, fine men and fine music.”

“Theater’s good too.”

“Oh, yes, we adore live theater, and anything around—“

———

“—books, it’s super-hard to steer straight with a pile of books in my basket, but you have to take care of your rider no matter what.”

“Hear hear,” agreed the Bentley heartily. “Got to look after them even when they won’t look after themselves. I had to drive one of my riders through a _wall of fire_ once, but what can you do? Just keep them safe, is all.”

Judging from the tilt of her handlebars, Jacaranda was deeply impressed, at which the Bentley exulted. “You’d never know; I can’t see so much as a paint-bubble on you,” she said respectfully. “My rider won’t even let me out a lot of the winter because the road salt’s so bad for me.”

“I like your rider already.” The Bentley felt that no rider could be good enough for this peerless conveyance, but disparaging another’s riders, unless they had truly earned it, was of course not the done thing.

“She’s good to me. I have a whole garage all to myself at home! Worst moment I’ve ever had is skidding out on a turn in wet leaves last fall. We went down pretty hard. She ended up with a knee all over road rash and bruises, nothing I could do.”

“Ouch, oh dear,” said the Bentley. “You look—fine, though. Beautiful. Not a hint of a scratch. You look so perfectly beautiful and put-together and perfect and—and beautiful.” The poor infatuated car forced itself to shut down its nervous babble, mentally deducting all the suavity points it had managed to award itself the entire conversation, and a few more for good measure.

Jacaranda twiddled her pedals a bit, not ready to admit how winning she found the Bentley’s unstudied adoration. “Well, we do fix up easier than they do, don’t we?” she said briskly. “My rider called my mechanic, and he had me back in shape in less than a day. She was a month healing up, though; I felt awful.”

“Not _your_ fault, I’m sure,” said the Bentley with entire sincerity and no flirtation. This source of unhappiness it knew about, far better than it wished to. “Any more than it can be your fault she’s growing older.”

“Thank you,” said Jacaranda with equal sincerity after a moment. “It’s good to be reminded of that. I was—I was so glad that some other people stopped to help us up and check we were okay. My basket got all twisted up—I made sure to land on it, thought it’d keep the worst of the damage off my rider—and my handlebars were out of true and their tape all torn up and it _hurt_ , but the guilt was so much worse. I was glad she had people, even if I failed her.”

“If not for you,” the Bentley declared, “I am sure she would have been far worse hurt. Just as if not for me, my rider would never have made it to—to a _very_ important appointment.”

“Must have been, to go through fire,” said Jacaranda, a mild shudder rippling through her drivetrain. “My rider and I were just, you know, on our way to work.”

“Oh, it was,” the Bentley averred. It had missed most of the final ructions around the Armored Get-Down, and was in fact quite hazy on how it had managed to _survive_ them after braving _Odegra_ , but it had heard enough from its riders afterwards that it had some idea of the sheer gravity of the event. “If there’s never another like that, it’ll be too soon.”

“I hear _that_ ,” she said. “Much rather spend the day just riding—“

———

“—around here? Well, I tell you what I’d do in your shoes.” The woman gestured toward the Square. “Take a walk around the market before it closes; it’s not all vegetables, there’s fruit and cheese and jams and baked goods and all kinds of picnicky stuff. Anything you decide you’re missing, stop in at Fromagination up that way; they’ll have it. Then go down to the Arboretum or to Olbrich for the afternoon, then this _evening_ you want to drive out to Spring Green for American Players Theatre. Let’s see what’s in the outdoor theater tonight, since the weather’s good.” She poked at her phone for a few moments. Aziraphale took the opportunity to crook a finger, a tiny surreptitious miracle refilling her chai latte. “Looks like _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ , and amazingly, it’s _not_ sold out.” Her triumph at finding them a congenial itinerary almost made her pleasant to look at.

“Why, how delightful that sounds!” Aziraphale turned his most irresistible pleading look on Crowley. “Don’t you think, Anthony dear?”

As Crowley well knew, this was the start of a negotiation rather than attempted manipulation. The demon still had just enough remnants of Pride left not to give in immediately, however. “You seen it?” he asked her.

“No, it just opened, but you can trust APT. I’ve gone every summer with—for a birthday treat for years. Not been disappointed yet!” 

Aziraphale heard her change of preposition, and on a hunch darted a glance at her left hand. There it was—base of the third finger, two faint lines where a pair of rings had lain long enough to leave marks, and been removed not long enough ago for the marks to fade. Crowley could not possibly see them, given his snake-eyes’ lackluster visual acuity, but Guardians had the sharp eyes they needed for their divinely-allotted work. To cover his not-wholly-welcome discovery, the angel declared, “I’m happy to take your—“

———

“—word for it, keep them together! My rider split with her partner a couple years ago, and it was the actual worst. She and I didn’t go anywhere except work for _months_.”

“Mine won’t split up, never in a million years,” said the Bentley. “Too bad about yours, though. She—she still adores you. You do know that? It’s all over you, plain as the pannier on your rack. Stopped me dead in the street, the love on you.”

“Oh, I know. After the skid-out she got me a brand-new Lezyne pump, super-nice, it’s got a screw-on pump head that’s easier on my valve stems.”

“You deserved it.” Now or never. The Bentley reached all the way down to its undercarriage for courage. “I think you deserve everything. I’ve never seen anyone like you. You’re wonderful, Jaqui, and I—“

“You’re sweet,” said Jacaranda, letting her front wheel, just a bit off the ground, revolve gently. “I like you too, The Bentley, and how you look after your riders. You’ll remember me?”

“How could I ever—“

———

“—forget? Hope my phone knowssss where this theater issss.”

The woman had begun to surmise that Crowley’s hiss was worse than his bite. “Oh, it’s not hard to get to even without GPS, though yes, that’ll work,” she said. “From the Arboretum entrance, turn left up Mills, then you’ll dead-end onto University. Turn left and just keep going on west—it’s about, I don’t know, forty-five minutes or so? Nice drive, I like it. Once you get a little way past the town of Arena, it’s a left turn to APT. Easy to miss, you’ll want to watch for the sign.”

“That sounds perfectly achievable.” Aziraphale patted her hand, silently blessing the muscles in her long-painful left shoulder blade into proper trim. “Thank you so much, my dear lady. How lucky we were, that your unusual bicycle led us to you!”

“No worries. Librarian, after all; we’re pathologically helpful, as a colleague of mine puts it.”

At this Crowley snorted. “Familiar with the type,” he said, turning a look on Aziraphale that made the woman quirk her lips again, a little wistfully. “Better get a move on, Ezra, if you want to make a round of that market before it closes.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” They all three arose. Aziraphale shook her hand again, tucking her business card into an inside jacket pocket with his other hand. “So lovely to have met you, my dear; I’ll write you once we’re home, shall I?” Crowley suspected that his angel meant a handwritten letter (in flawless library hand, no doubt), whereas she would be expecting an email. He shrugged inwardly; it would work itself out.

“Sure thing. Enjoy your time—“

———

“—here, The Bentley. I see your riders are chatting with mine. She’ll tell them all the good places.”

Their three riders emerged into the summer sun, the Bentley’s approaching it to gauge its situation, the angel inquisitive, the demon very nearly jealous. “Oh, wow, is that _yours_?” Jacaranda’s rider exclaimed. “That car is _gorgeous_!” 

Jacaranda merrily spun her front wheel at the Bentley’s instinctive preen, even as her rider exchanged a covert smile with Aziraphale at Crowley’s. “Well, it’s true,” said Jacaranda to the Bentley. “You really are gorgeous, you know.”

The Bentley all of a sudden felt it could drive clear to Alpha Centauri without needing the least hint of a demonic miracle, never mind a disgusting tank of petrol. Quite without meaning to, it let down its streetside front window and its speakers blurted, 

_“Fat-bottomed girls, they'll be riding today  
So look out for those beauties, oh yeah!”_

Aziraphale put an appalled hand to his lips, and even Crowley almost winced. Gabriel bullying the angel over his corporation’s physique had acquainted both with— _fatphobia_ , Aziraphale thought the humans called it nowadays, though Gabriel had never seemed scared, only scornful.[4] Much to Aziraphale’s relief, though, Jacaranda’s decidedly fat-bottomed rider only let out a resounding crack of laughter. “Nobody’s called _me_ a beauty in more than twenty years. Your car’s all charm, Anthony.”

Crowley mentally credited her a few style points for that, over and above those Jacaranda was worth. He also saw the Bentley all but drooping over its wheels at the prospect of Jacaranda leaving, and Go— Sa— _Someone_ , he owed that car so much. An afternoon’s pleasant flirtation was little enough indulgence. “Say, bike-girl,” he said casually. “Could we offer you lunch? At the Arboretum maybe, after Ezra and I go ’round the market?”

“Oh, now, you can’t actually want _me_ for a gooseberry.” She pronounced it correctly, earning another reluctant style point from Crowley even as he blanked on an answer. After all, she was _right_ —he was doing this for his car, not her.

Aziraphale promptly rescued the situation, both for the Bentley’s sake and to assuage the hint of sadness in the woman’s voice. “Oh, but if the Arboretum is as big as you say, we’ll never find the best parts of it! Do please show us around, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Well… all right, if you’re sure, why not? Thank you.” She hefted two cloth bags into Jacaranda’s front basket, pulling a cargo net from the rear pannier to secure them. “I was planning to make _insalata napoletana_ from my farmer’s-market loot when I got home anyway. I’ll just run home, do that, and bring it with. Meet you at the Arboretum entrance, then? Ninety minutes or so?”

“Lovely.” The angel smiled at her—not one of the stunners reserved for Crowley alone, but still a smile that communicated an angelic sense of her human worth. She returned him a grateful nose-wrinkling smile of her own.

“See you, bike-girl,” said Crowley, already dawdling his slope-shouldered way toward the Square.

“Oh, he is impossible sometimes. Don’t mind him. A safe ride home, my dear.” It was a promise.

“I’ll see you in a few, The Bentley,” said Jacaranda cheerfully as her rider patted her handlebars preparatory to climbing on. “Look after your riders, now, and for pity’s sake, no more of those U-turns or someone’ll get something a lot worse than road rash!”

The Bentley, dreamy and content, watched her glide fleetly down the hill from the Square. Vehicles were made for motion; it could not expect more time than this from her or from its own riders. Still, it would always have this one golden day, and that made this whole journey to and through America worth its while.

———

[1] Crowley had had a hand in the design of the most dangerous early velocipedes, Aziraphale the safety bicycle. Crowley did not particularly care for bicycles, but he started keeping an eye on innovations once Ligur stole that march on him. [return to text]

[2] The Military Ridge State Trail between Madison and Mount Horeb. This trail is neither particularly military nor especially ridged. Naming is indeed a singularly human pursuit, but that doesn’t mean humans can’t be total pants at it. [return to text]

[3] In Wisconsin, it is not at all uncommon for coffeeshops to purvey alcohol also, mostly in the evenings. Crowley and Aziraphale were lucky the Bentley took them to a coffeeshop where the tipple of choice wasn’t beer, for that matter. [return to text]

[4] Humans truly are pants at naming things. [return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Details about Jacaranda and her rider (i.e. me) are accurate. Jacaranda is a custom-built randonneur/commuter by Violet Crown Cycles (no longer in business). She is the best bike ever, I adore her to distraction, and that skid-out was totally my fault no matter what she says. She is utterly worthy of the Bentley.
> 
> I love my home city only a little less than I love my bike. This fic is set at Barriques on West Washington Avenue, just a little way down from the Capitol Square, on a Dane County Farmer's Market Saturday. How the Bentley got away with that U-turn, never mind the flagrantly illegal parking, is a mystery to me.
> 
> It was [CopperBeech](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/) who got me wondering whether the Bentley swung more toward triangle frames or mixtes/step-throughs. (I suspect the Bentley to be panvehicular.) ImprobableDreams900's delightful "[You're My Best Friend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748254)" revved up my wish to write about the Bentley, and the love between vehicles and riders.
> 
> Thank you for indulging my silly pairing.


End file.
